http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Scientists at the Forsyth have gained new insight on how Tuberculosis (TB) remains a global epidemic. Although drugs have been available to fight TB for 50 years, the disease still infects nearly 2.2 billion people worldwide and causes 1.7 million annual deaths. This is largely attributed to the bacteria's ability to stay dormant in the human body and later resurface as active disease. The Forsyth team, and its collaborators from Stanford University, has recently discovered that Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria that causes TB, can lay dormant and thrive within bone marrow stem cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-scientists-gain-latent-tuberculosis.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:00:01 EST news278766332 New evidence from a four-year field study has shown that BCG vaccination reduces the risk of tuberculosis infection in unvaccinated badger cubs in vaccinated groups, as well as in badgers that received the vaccine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-vaccination-unvaccinated-badger-cubs-tuberculosis.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:00:03 EST news274553759 Tuberculosis (TB) has been suspected to increase a person's risk of lung cancer because the pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis can induce genetic damage. However, direct evidence of specific genetic changes and the disease have not been extensively reported. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-link-tb-gene-mutation-lung.html Cancer Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:54:36 EST news246102796 In populations with a low prevalence of tuberculosis (TB), the majority of positives with the three tests commercially available in the U.S for the diagnosis of TB are false positives, according to a new study. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-discordance-commercially-available-diagnostics-latent-tb.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Fri, 09 Dec 2011 02:53:48 EST news242621589 Statens Serum Institut and Aeras today announce the initiation of the first Phase I clinical trial of a new candidate TB vaccine designed to protect people latently infected with TB from developing active TB disease. The trial is being conducted by the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) at its field site in Worcester, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Dr. Hassan Mahomed is the principal investigator. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-vaccine-latent-tb-clinical.html Medications Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:19:29 EST news241928360 New research from the Trudeau Institute may help in the ongoing fight against tuberculosis. Dr. Andrea Cooper's lab has discovered a connection between the development of new lymphoid tissue within the lung and protection against the disease. The new data will be published in the November 1 print issue of The Journal of Immunology (Vol. 187, Num. 10) and is available now online ahead of print. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-latest-discovery-tuberculosis.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 18 Oct 2011 09:37:02 EST news238149372 The bacterium that causes tuberculosis has a unique molecule on its outer cell surface that blocks a key part of the body's defense. New research suggests this represents a novel mechanism in the microbe's evolving efforts to remain hidden from the human immune system. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-tuberculosis-bacterium-outer-cell-wall.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 03 Oct 2011 17:16:03 EST news236880900 Despite being widely available for sale in low-and-middle income countries, commercial serological tests used to detect active tuberculosis (by identifying antibodies to the tuberculosis-causing bacterium in a blood sample) do not accurately diagnose TB and, furthermore, often test positive when the patient does not have TB (false positive) and test negative when the patient actually has TB (false negative). In addition, as shown in India, the use of such tests is not cost effective as compared to other tests available for TB. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-serological-antibody-tuberculosis-inaccurate-cost-effective.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:00:01 EST news232118612